Young Jeff Miller inherits a neighbor's collie and, while Lassie has trouble adapting to the Miller home, she is mistreated by the deceased's misanthropic hired man Wills who hangs on to steal the deceased's hidden cash.

Ellen, at first mortified by Jeff's discovery of his deceased father's rifle, allows him to play with unloaded weapon but Jeff proves reckless with the weapon when Mr., King loads it to kill a fox on his farm.

Jeff is enthralled by the plethora of tall tales told by the new farmhand Mr. Peabody but Gramps is chafed at folksy Peabody's partial falsehoods and peculiar ways and what he perceives as these things influences on Jeff.

Lassie is in the barn and about to have puppies but looks ill at ease, and Tommy is worried. He wants to fetch a doctor but there is a windstorm which called Gramps away to repair lines. Without Gramps to help, Mom advises Tommy to pray. Later that night, the windstorm has died but Gramps is still gone, Tommy decides he just has to ride his bike 5 miles in the darkness to veterinarian Dr. Wilson but Mom won't let him. Tommy advocates for a world where kids can prevail with their perspective on doing the right thing. Nonetheless, he relents and is about to head for bed...

Ellen takes a job as singer at radio station in Capitol City and finds a small apartment that does not allow dogs so Lassie stays on the farm with Gramps but Ellen takes Jeff who is made miserable by lack of activities and a mean neighbor.

When Gramps has back problems, Jeff thinks Gramps will die if he does not have an operation the family can not afford and begins a twenty mile hike to Creston to sell Lassie to Porky's cousin to get the operation money.

A man who, unknown to the Millers, has been a prizefighter who killed a man in the ring signs on to be a Miller farmhand and is perceived by formerly admiring Jeff as coward for not standing up against another farmhand bully.

Ellen cares for a divorced old friend' s troubled daughter whose repressed anger is manifest in the destruction of things dear to others even to the extent that the girl will put Lassie mortal danger so Lassie will lose a racing contest.

Jeff whose father is deceased is told by a bully that he does not belong at the church father and son banquet but,, after Jeff rejects Gramps company, Ellen injects her self into the event and gains the participants' admiration.

After a couple whose son was blinded in the war and had a collie named Lassie try to buy Lassie for their son's adjustment, Jeff agrees to let the couple borrow Lassie for two weeks but Lassie's return goes awry.